Alert filtering

ABSTRACT

A system for handling alerts of an event, the event comprising delivery of data to a user device, comprises a receiver for receiving an event notification, a processor for acquiring information relating to the users likely current activity, for acquiring filtering information, and for comparing the users likely current activity with the filtering information and an output device for outputting an alert to the user dependent upon the comparison of the users likely current activity with the filtering information.

This invention relates to a method of and system for handling alerts toan event. Typically, these events are such things as the receipt of anemail or incoming telephone call.

Consumers are increasingly bombarded with alerts such as ‘new emails’,‘weather forecast’, ‘traffic information’ or more traditional ones suchas an analogue phone ringing. Many of these alerts are seen as rudebecause they interfere with current user activities. Filtering alerts isnot a novel topic and several initiatives have been undertaken in thisarea most of which concentrate on location specific alerts. Location iscertainly a good indicator for filtering alerts when a user is out andabout but is unfortunately not sufficient for filtering alerts at home.The tendency therefore is to simply not filter alerts at home; thiscould cause some irritation with the user, which will only grow in thenear future as the number of digitally triggered alerts will rise inline with the increased popularity of interconnected devices, or havetimed alerts, which are a step forward to ‘giving the user what he wantswhen he wants it’ but require a user to set these up and modify them asrequired.

United States patent application publication US 2001/0012286 disclosesan apparatus and method for alerting a user upon receipt of selectedmessages, independent of the type of device generating the message isprovided. Message generating devices include telephony devices(telephone, fax machine, etc.), or data devices such as a computer orPDA. All messages are converted into a format compatible with a datanetwork for delivery to a web server. The web server includes a messagenotification system with message alert type selection and incomingmessage filtering. A user designates from a computer the types ofmessages for which s/he wishes to be alerted, and designates how thealert is to be presented on his/her computer. When messages are receivedby the web server, they are distinguished by message type, and filteredaccording to the user defined criteria. Selected messages cause amessage indication to be generated provided to a program on the user'scomputer. The program alerts the user, either visually or audibly,depending on user defined criteria, of the number and type of receivedmessages. One alert type of the present invention includes a flashingicon or LED on the users computer system. However, the system describedin this document, as with all the known systems, requires the user toindicate the parameters for the filtering of alerts.

It is therefore an object of the invention to improve upon the knownart, by providing a system of handling alerts that does not require usercreation of the parameters for the filtering of alerts and simply andefficiently handles the incoming alerts.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a methodof handling alerts of an event, the event comprising delivery of data toa user device, comprising receiving an event notification, acquiringinformation relating to the users likely current activity, acquiringfiltering information, comparing the users likely current activity withthe filtering information and outputting an alert to the user dependentupon the comparison of the users likely current activity with thefiltering information.

According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided asystem for handling alerts of an event, the event comprising delivery ofdata to a user device, comprising a receiver for receiving an eventnotification, a processor for acquiring information relating to theusers likely current activity, for acquiring filtering information, andfor comparing the users likely current activity with the filteringinformation and an output device for outputting an alert to the userdependent upon the comparison of the users likely current activity withthe filtering information.

In the preferred embodiment, the user receives alerts when he is able towhilst minimizing the user system interaction. The willingness toreceive certain alerts depends upon the activity a user is engaged inand can depend upon the type of alert. For instance, many people willperceive an incoming phone call during a commercial break on the TVacceptable whereas most will also agree that this is highly undesirablewhilst watching a movie on the same TV. This invention addresses thisproblem by deducting (from, for example, the current state of consumerdevices) what activity a user might be engaged in and filtering incomingalerts accordingly.

This input together with the type of alert received is then fed intoanother self learning artificial intelligence module that gives aprediction of the level of user receptiveness for this type of alert. Ifthe receptiveness is above a certain level, the alert is presentedimmediately. If the level is below a certain level that the alert is putin a cache. The procedure described above is then executed at regularintervals until the content of the cache is cleared completely.

The problem is not new, but the solution is, as it uses fused data fromdifferent sources (electronic programme guide and/or consumerelectronics device status) to determine the users likely currentactivity. This is then in turn used to filter incoming alerts of adiverse nature, not necessarily directly related to any of theinformation sources used.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way ofexample only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:—

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network of consumer electronicsdevices and a remote control device,

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the remote control device of FIG. 1,and

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a method of handling alerts of an event.

FIG. 1 illustrates a home network of consumer electronics devices,including a television 10, a DVD player 12, an audio system (HiFi) 14, apersonal computer (PC) 16 and a mobile telephone 18. All of the devicesin the network are connected to and can be controlled by a remotecontrol device (RC) 20. Traditionally, remote controls have beendedicated devices, with one remote control per device, but global remotecontrol devices have been known for some time. An example of such aremote control is the iPronto device of Philips Electronics. The remotecontrol 20 communicates wirelessly with each device, using a short-rangewireless protocol such as 802.11b (WiFi). The communication is a two-waycommunication, with control signals, data, and state informationtravelling to and from the remote control 20.

Each of the devices of the network can receive an event. The eventcomprises delivery of data to the user device. An example of such anevent would be, in the case of the mobile phone 18, an incomingtelephone call or receipt of a text message. In the case of the PC 16,this might be, for example, receipt of an email, completion of a lengthydownload, or notification that a friend is now online. The user isalerted of these events via the remote control 20.

The remote control 20 operates as a system for handling all of thealerts of the events, and is shown in more detail in FIG. 2. The remotecontrol 20 comprises a receiver 22 for receiving the event notificationsfrom each of the user devices that comprise the local network. Theremote control 20 also comprises a processor 24. The processor 24 is foracquiring information relating to the users likely current activity, andfor acquiring filtering information.

In a preferred embodiment, the processor 24 of the remote control 20acts as the central device for determining the activity that the user isengaged in on the basis of the status of the local devices and externaldata such as electronic radio and TV programme guides. When an alertarrives at the remote control 20, the processor 24 is arranged, whenacquiring information relating to the users likely current activity, toaccess information on the current state of one or more user devices byeither querying the devices directly if possible or by checking the lastknown state of each device from the device usage log, which is createdby observing the user's behaviour. In the latter case the time passedsince the last interaction was performed can be used to assignstatistical significance to whether or not any particular device isstill in this state (for example, knowing that a TV was last switched toBBC1 12 hours ago indicates that the state of the TV is unknown as theuser has probably switched off the device). This state information isfed into a Bayesian network or other artificial intelligence basedmodule that is able to predict user activities on the basis of the inputparameters such as device state, time of day, and day of week.

The output of this module within the processor 24 is a predication ofthe users likely current activity which may be, for example, ‘watchingTV, ’ ‘listening to the radio’, or ‘having breakfast’. The processor 24is arranged, when acquiring filtering information, to retrieve a file.At the most basic level this is a file with the relevant user activitieslisted, with an indication as to whether the alert should be output ornot. As an example, the filtering information would contain suchinformation as “watching DVD—no output” and “listening to theradio—output”. This information can be user determined, in which casethe retrieved file is a user profile.

The processor 24 compares the users likely current activity with thefiltering information and communicates with an output device 26. Theoutput device 26 is for outputting the alert to the user dependent uponthe comparison of the users likely current activity with the filteringinformation. The output device 26 is typically an audio device toprovide an audio alert if the processor 24 has indicated that the usershould be alerted to the received event notification. A visual alert canalso be presented to the user if desired. In this way the receipt ofevent alerts are dealt with centrally by the remote control 20, whichfilters the alerts according to the users likely current activity.Typical of the activities that a user might be engaged in are listed inthe following table. Watching TV Having dinner Watching a soap on the TvReading a book Watching a DVD Listening to the radio Watchingcommercials on the TV Having breakfast Watching the news on the TVReading a newspaper Watching a documentary on the TV Browsing the webWatching sport on the 1V Listening to music Watching a quiz or game showOn the phone Watching a favourite series on TV Cooking a meal

Typical alerts include receiving a new e-mail, receiving a new textmessage, an update to the weather forecast for today, an incoming phonecall, or an incoming fax.

The processor 24 is so arranged that following the step of comparing theusers likely current activity with the filtering information, if noalert is output, then the processor 24 stores the alert in a storagedevice 28. This storage device for storing the alerts is typically aflash memory with random access. The users likely current activity iscontinually monitored by the remote control 20, and the processor 24 isarranged to output the stored alert if the users likely current activityhas changed. For example, if when the processor 24 accesses informationon the state of the user devices present in the local network, theprocessor 24 detects that the DVD player 12 is operating, then it willdeduce that the user is currently watching a DVD. The filteringinformation accessed by the processor 24 indicates that no alert of anevent should be outputted when the user is watching DVD, so the alert isstored in the storage device 28. However, the processor 24 iscontinually monitoring the state of the user devices, and if theprocessor 24 becomes aware that the DVD player 12 is no longeroperating, for longer than a trivial time period, then the alert will beoutputted by the remote control 20.

In the above embodiment, the processor 24, having decided on the userslikely current activity, compares that information with the filteringinformation to decided whether to output an alert to the received eventnotification. However this methodology can be improved to provide asystem that has greater flexibility. In this arrangement, the processor24 is arranged, following the receiver 22 receiving an eventnotification, to classify the event notification as being of apredetermined type. In a simple version, the predetermined type is oneof high, medium or low priority.

By classifying the event notification as being of a particular type, thefiltering information can be more complicated, and based upon thedifferent types of events. So rather than the filtering informationcontaining an entry such as “watching TV—no output”, the entry in thefiltering information would read “watching TV—output high”, meaning thatthe alert of the event would only be output if the event notificationhas been classified as being of the type “high priority”. As an example,an incoming text message may be classified as being of medium priorityand an incoming telephone call may be classified as being of highpriority. In the example where the processor 24 has determined that theusers likely current activity is watching TV, then in the case of anincoming text message, the alert is stored for output latter, whereas ifthere is an incoming telephone call, then that alert is outputimmediately to the user by the output device 26.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart summarising the method of operation of the system,being a method of handling alerts of an event, the event comprisingdelivery of data to a user device. The method, in its simplest formcomprises the steps of receiving 30 an event notification, acquiring 34information relating to the users likely current activity, acquiring 36filtering information, comparing 38 the users likely current activitywith the filtering information and outputting 40 an alert to the userdependent upon the comparison of the users likely current activity withthe filtering information.

As discussed above, the step 34 of acquiring information relating to theusers likely current activity comprises accessing information on thecurrent state of one or more user devices, and the step 36 of acquiringfiltering information comprises retrieving a file. Following the step 38of comparing the users likely current activity with the filteringinformation, if no alert is output, the method further comprises storing42 the alert, and also comprises outputting 44 the stored alert if theusers likely current activity has changed.

The method can also include the stage following the step of receiving anevent notification, of classifying 32 the event notification as being ofa predetermined type. One possible classification scheme involves thepredetermined type being one of high, medium or low priority.

1. A method of handling alerts of an event, the event comprisingdelivery of data to a user device, comprising receiving an eventnotification, acquiring information relating to the users likely currentactivity, acquiring filtering information, comparing the users likelycurrent activity with the filtering information and outputting an alertto the user dependent upon the comparison of the users likely currentactivity with the filtering information.
 2. A method according to claim1, and further comprising, following the step of receiving an eventnotification, classifying the event notification as being of apredetermined type.
 3. A method according to claim 2, wherein thepredetermined type is one of high, medium or low priority.
 4. A methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the step of acquiring information relatingto the users likely current activity comprises accessing information onthe current state of one or more user devices.
 5. A method according toclaim 1, wherein the step of acquiring filtering information comprisesretrieving a file.
 6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the file isa user profile.
 7. A method according to claim 1, wherein following thestep of comparing the users likely current activity with the filteringinformation, if no alert is output, the method further comprises storingthe alert.
 8. A method according to claim 7, and further comprisingoutputting the stored alert if the users likely current activity haschanged.
 9. A system for handling alerts of an event, the eventcomprising delivery of data to a user device, comprising a receiver forreceiving an event notification, a processor for acquiring informationrelating to the users likely current activity, for acquiring filteringinformation, and for comparing the users likely current activity withthe filtering information and an output device for outputting an alertto the user dependent upon the comparison of the users likely currentactivity with the filtering information.
 10. A system according to claim9, wherein the processor is arranged, following the receiver receivingan event notification, to classify the event notification as being of apredetermined type.
 11. A system according to claim 10, wherein thepredetermined type is one of high, medium or low priority.
 12. A systemaccording to claim 9, wherein the processor is arranged, when acquiringinformation relating to the users likely current activity, to accessinformation on the current state of one or more user devices.
 13. Asystem according to claim 9, wherein the processor is arranged, whenacquiring filtering information, to retrieve a file.
 14. A systemaccording to claim 13, wherein the file is a user profile.
 15. A systemaccording to claim 9, and further comprising a storage device forstoring the alert.